Jacksons of Reading

Jacksons of Reading was founded in 1875 by Edward Jackson and began life as a gentlemen’s outfitters shop.

It expanded to include a lingerie section, a haberdashery, shoe sales, and a yarn department. When it closed for business on Christmas Eve, 2013, it was being run by Edward Jackson’s great-grandson, Brian Carter. It was a family-run department store with unbroken links to an earlier epoch in retail history; an iconic and much-loved local landmark.

You could buy huge sacks of bargaineous yarns from Sirdar and Wendys and Twilleys of Stamford in Jacksons.

In fact my first proper grown-up sweater was knit with Sirdar sublime, purchased at a Jacksons of Reading sale.

Jacksons was also a great supplier of proper big lady pants and Triumph bras; Appletons Crewel Wool; tea-towels; Harris Tweed sporting jackets for men; school uniforms; nylons; buttons; and those amazing swimming hats that have flowers on them.

Jacksons had creaky floors, extensive wooden-paneling, and to me was especially magical because it contained the last operational pneumatic change system in the UK.

This change system was installed in the 1940s and is still in good working order. I quickly learnt that if I purchased a hanky for about a quid and paid with a fiver, I could watch my donuts disappearing up a chute in a little metal capsule. They’d return moments later with my change and receipt, wrapped in a rubber band. I recorded the sounds of the chute in action for the Sound Diaries UK Soundmap / sonic time capsule project, and you can hear it here and below if you would like to share my nerdy obsession.

The sounds detailed in that recording are now extinct; you can’t walk into a department store and see your money disappear up a pneumatic tube now. Jacksons had the last such system in operation in the UK and now that Jacksons is closed, those sounds will cease to be part of the British retail soundscape.

Like so many aspects of the shop, when they were in operation, the pneumatic tubes exuded a sense of being living history.

The sense of the preciousness of this history, and people’s personal connections with the shop were evident in the footfall through the store on the 3rd and 4th of January 2013. When Jacksons re-opened briefly on these dates for a viewing, and then auctioning off, of all the old fixtures, fittings, dead stock, and ephemera residing in the building, over 600 people poured through the doors. It was a reverent crowd, tinged with excitement at being allowed to explore this old building, and the possibility of being able to buy a small keepsake of its history.

I went to see all the rooms that have been closed off from the public for years. I fell a bit in love with an old art-deco cabinet, because of the sign which someone had made for it.

I had no idea the building was so vast and labyrinthine… or that things from so long ago in the shop’s history were still resting inside it…

…who knew that at the very top of the building, there was once a sewing room, and that beside that sewing room, there were two gas-fired iron warmers and spare irons?

…that the building contained an old lift…

…that there were layers of wallpaper from different times tucked behind cash desks and shelving…

…and that Jacksons once ran an orchestra of old wooden cash registers with bells of slightly different pitches inside?

The time that people spent working at Jacksons was etched into the things and spaces I found there…

…pins organised neatly into a tin through years of suit-fittings…

…a price-list for tailoring modifications adjusted to reflect inflation or the exigencies of a new business plan…

…an improvised system for ordering the stationery associated with sales…

…a carefully inscribed set of engineering notes on the wall beside the engine powering the pneumatic tube system, in the basement of the building.

It was an enormous privilege to be able to see and touch these things which have been part of people’s daily work at Jacksons for decades, and I am very sad for the 60 employees who have lost their jobs with this store closure.

Everyone I spoke to said that working at Jacksons was a particular and special sort of experience…

…but the costs of maintaining the building were escalating, and the demand for 60% polyester suits, thick bed socks, ladies’ gloves and hunting jackets is not what it once was in Reading, and the store couldn’t keep going simply because people love it.

On the 4th January 2014, the auction at Jacksons was rammed. The auctioneer said he had very rarely seen so many people turning up to an auction.

The crazy money people were bidding for old ladders and tills and boxes and coathangers became a kind of collective celebration, and there was a real sense of people wanting a keepsake or memento.

‘A modern shop fitting clothes hanging rail, do I have £20? No modern home is complete without it, I tell you… everything must go today, do I have £18? Yes? £25? £32? £32 in the room… £40 everywhere…’

Everybody clapped when “Cruella” – a child-sized mannequin – sold for £700.

This is truly a sad situation that you have chronicled so well. How many other “Mom and Pop” stores will be closed this year because of lagging sales, lack of interest in product or more aggressive stores coming in ? We see this happening quite often in our area (Chicago) too. This particularly happens to the small hardware stores that have been in the same family for years being overwhelmed by the big box stores that sell everything. I really like those old stores with all the doodads for whatever purpose. Several of the old, established department stores in the States are just hanging on by a thread because of lagging sales because people are going elsewhere for better prices and articles of clothing. However, the yarn stores seem to be doing well. I have 3 LYS and each one has a “specialty”. One is a stockiest for Jamieson and Smith, another for Sue Blacker and the third for Rowan. So at least I can get my wooly fix close to home.

So many memories – Jacksons haberdashery, craft and wool departments employed me over three years – as Saturday girl, when I started ‘courting’ P, as summer holiday cover at a couple of points. I remember being somewhat terrified of the pneumatic change system, and feeling fortunate that in Craft we were allowed (less fear for security, since potential trouble would have to make a relatively long journey to the shop doors) an actual till… and handwritten receipts on a spike… and the mammoth lay-bys for yarn that was being held… and the labyrinth to get to the tea room, let alone stores!

So many memories – Jacksons haberdashery, craft and wool departments employed me over three years – as Saturday girl, when I started ‘courting’ P, as summer holiday cover at a couple of points. I remember being somewhat terrified of the pneumatic change system, and feeling fortunate that in Craft we were allowed (less fear for security, since potential trouble would have to make a relatively long journey to the shop doors) an actual till… and handwritten receipts on a spike… and the mammoth lay-bys for yarn that was being held… and the labyrinth to get to the tea room, let alone stores!

The mannequins were always scary – though the windows did when I was there have stern notes by the entrances: “no mannequin must be left undressed in the window display” (or words to that effect!)

I wish them all the very best for futures that are not quite the same.

Hi, thanks for letting me use your premises in my Jacksons Corner Music video, this really helped my goal of getting my Music out there.People worldwide from Australis to the USA now are aware of my Music and of the Reading landmarks existence.

I wrote the song well before I knew of the sad news of the stores closure. I was very inspired and felt a deep attraction to the buildings heritage and a fund romanticism to it’s historic Victorian identity.

I have now been given the oppotunity to perfrom at the Crooked Billet in Stoke Row Henley on Thames. where I will perform the song as well as many others from the Jacksons Corner album. In case you’re unaware this venue has the best food & wine around. And i’ll be playing with the very best backing band.

Thanks for this affectionate bit of Reading-ana. I used to live pretty much right across from it in a flat in Kings Road. I was never really a regular customer but I’m glad that a few times in my life I got to see a department store where change was being shuttled around in a little tube. If you tell that to kids today, they won’t believe you.

Sad to see the old place go, because it still provided some employment and was an icon of Reading’s heritage, but of course the rest of the world moved on while Jacksons seemingly stayed rooted in the past and its closure was more or less inevitable. The value of the property must far outweigh the income the shop might have provided in the last couple of decades.

These photographs are wonderful and as long as this blog post remains online, you’ll be keeping a little piece of Jacksons alive.

Growing up in Sonning Common.. 1945 until 1962.. then doing SRN training in Reading at the RBH 1963 -1966 I knew Jackson’s. My grandmother would take my sister and I to the store.She would be seated on the ground floor and members of staff would bring all that she required to her. My sister and I would be whisked off to be kitted out with school uniform and other things.

Question… Am I correct in thinking the delivery from Jackson’s out to Sonning Common..monthly I think, was it by horse and cart? I remember someone calling for money regularly, and him bringing a parcel. The same gentleman encouraged me to persevere with learning the piano.. I did and have been used this talent so many times, like he said.

Your website is brilliant. I’ve only just seen it… so many memories. Thank you!

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